Dear fellow doctoral students,
The new Aliens Act has made a change in the process for granting permanent residency, which gravely affects all non-EU/EEA doctoral students and other early-career researchers in Sweden.
Before July 20th, 2021, doctoral students were granted permanent residency after 4 years of doctoral studies without having to prove that they have a permanent contract or long fixed-term contract as proof of their ability to support themselves financially. Since July 20, 2021, the requirements of applying for a permanent residence permit in the doctoral studies track have undergone a big and unfair change. Based on the newly introduced changes the majority of non-EU/EEA doctoral students are practically no longer eligible for applying for permanent residency at the end of 4 years of doctoral studies, meaning that it will effectively be postponed to an unknown time in the future. This is mainly due to the following new requirement: The applicant has to have permanent or fixed-term employment lasting at least 18 months. This is not compatible with nature of employment of doctoral students and other early-career researchers that usually have short-term contracts.
As an individual, what can you do?
- Go and sign the following petition that SULF, ST and SFS-DK is behind.
- Read, share (and print) material about the situation, and share it with other researchers in your department.
- Printed and distributed the attached poster with QR code to the petition to bring awareness to this issue.
- Spread the word and share the petition to raise awareness about this issue, show solidarity and gather support in order to insure more equal and fair treatment for international doctoral students and other early career researchers in Sweden.
If you wish to know more about the issue
- If you wish to stay updated, join SFS-DK’s Facebook group “Doktorand i Sverige,” follow SULF-DCA face book page : https://www.facebook.com/SULFDCA and/or join the grassroot campaign’ Facebook grouphere
- If you wish to read more about the topic, you can find a list of articles and blog posts here. The list will be updated regularly.
If you are affected by the change of law and wish to know more about your situation
- SULF has a good FAQ that is being updated regularly. Check it out here.
- SULF also organized an informative lunch seminar last Friday, you can find the recording here lunch webinar.
- Finally, if you are still left with questions, we recommend that you reach out to your trade union and potentially also your doktorand ombud.
What is SFS and SFS-DK doing on the matter?
SFS and SFS-DK are participating in a collaboration with the ST, SULF and SULF’s doctoral candidate association (SULF-DCA). Within this collaboration, we work on bringing awareness to this issue through news articles, the petition, and similar. Through this collaboration, we also raise the issue in a number of different contexts, inboards and councils where we have representatives, towards other organizations and of course also to the migration agency and politicians. It is however likely that a solution will take some time.